Game of Thrones Season 5 episode 8: Hardhome

                 

Game of Thrones seasons have long been predicated on the long game. The show is so popular that people analyze it week to week as if the episode were somehow representative of the entire arc of the show. Of course, the continued clumsy handling of sexualized violence and overt cruelty as a plot device has worn a bit thin, and it’s worth identifying those trends on an episode basis. However, episodes like tonight, one part interesting and one part terrifying, are precisely why you can’t really judge a GOT season until it’s entirely over. 

                Hardhome was not Blackwater or the battle at the wall in terms of actual show time taken up, but it was every bit as exciting. To be fair, it was more exciting than the Battle at the wall, which probably stretched on a bit too long. But before I split off into fanboy excitement over those last twenty or so minutes I should point out that what makes any large scale battle successful is not the battle itself. It matters somewhat, see: last week’s sand snakes vs. Bronn and Jaime atrocity, but it only matters if the characters and stakes have been clearly identified. By this point, almost every viewer either loves Jon Snow for his leadership, his lowly origin story, or his beautiful hair. In short, the viewer, or the intelligent viewer, needs to care about the outcome or repercussions of the battle. The viewer needs to identify with one of the characters .We’re born narcissists, so we’re bound to identify with the characters who display the most heroic virtues. This is a long way of saying that as good as Hardhome was, GOT has some growing up to do over its final two seasons if we’re to care about whether the Night’s King runs rampant or not. 

                What happened to those zombie soldiers? I think they took the same mid-season treatment that Lebron did. These wights were flying all over the battlefield or off cliffs with the abandon of a teenager at a Sizzler buffet. Gone are the slow plodding skeletons of earlier seasons. The White Walkers are in a hurry. The battle was exciting and fast hitting. The camera cuts were fast and furious, and as much as I love a good Richard Linklater long shot, these aren’t two lovers walking down a lane, so it worked. If the battle work was clumsy we didn’t linger long enough to see it. I’m exhausted just thinking about how long that must have taken to shoot. Then again, cutting through a bunch of CGI skeletons might have gotten wrapped in an afternoon. More on that later. 

                I think the show runners, or George R.R. Martin are wise to not play the White Walker card too frequently. It’s rare that a GOT episode scares me, but that’s precisely how I felt by the conclusion of this one. It was haunting to watch the Night’s King, maybe old Bran Stark, raise his hands and bring to life an army for the dead. It’s easy to think of the Walkers as mindless killers, but that’s what they use the wights for, the leaders of the Walkers were more terrifying because they were surveying the battle from afar, waging a war rather than blindly trying to kill. In truth, an army that has leaders and a plan is more terrifying than a bunch of mindless zombies. Relatedly though, the whole feeling of that scene, watching the dead rise, watching Jon float away with the Night’s King holding his arms extended was one of fear but also of a kind of silliness for worrying about Ramsey or the rest of King’s Landing. It’s good to keep the Walkers to a minimum because their sheer destructiveness makes the stakes lower for everything else happening. 

                The episode began in Mereen, where everyone’s two favorite characters, Dany and Tyrion are finally united. And though Emilia Clarke is mostly a one note player it was good to see Tyrion back in the saddle. He’s made for scheming and trying to minimize the harm that a ruler can inflict. His first piece of advice, send Jorah back out of the city was sound and designed to save his life. By the end of the episode and a jug of chianti he’s made his way into Dany’s heart. Uniting these two is critical and wise. They are both well liked and respectable in complex ways, but they also have a large army and a bunch of dragons to come swooping down in the last fight against the Walkers, which is, yes where this thing is heading. But in the meantime the two of them can pour out wine and talk about their terrible fathers. It’s like a mini-therapy session, and the best kind, one with sunshine, pyramids, and wine. 

                Poor Ser Jorah finds himself standing outside the gates of Mereen for a second time. Being in love with a woman who keeps throwing you out of her city is rough, but it’s even rougher when you have a wasting disease. Jorah makes the most of his opportunity….or he’s spreading grey scale everywhere. Is he being careful? How does this thing spread? Anyhow, heading back to the fighting pits to stand in front of his queen is the culmination of his long ride from her side to what can only be death. Props to Emilia Clarke for the brief break in her brow when Tyrion mentions that he loved her. It was a well-acted moment. 

                Elsewhere, Ramsey Bolton, the sadist hobbit, is making plans to ride out with twenty men to kill or maim Stannis. Ramsey isn’t everyone’s favorite character, but I have a feeling he’ll be successful in bringing Stannis down as he ponders whether it’s worth it to sacrifice his daughter to appease the Red God. Hey buddy, hint, it isn’t. Meanwhile everyone’s favorite torture toy Sansa gets her first bit of good news in roughly four years with the discovery that Bran and Rikkon are still alive. Bran is now slightly larger than Hodor and living in a tree, but hey, alive is alive. I’m not entirely sure what Brienne is up to, but it might be time to step away from the window and get some air, maybe visit the dog kennels and get the lay of the land. 

                In King’s Landing, Cersei has taken the same steep decline that Margery has, lapping up spilled water off the floor rather than a fine Dorenish Rose from 54 at half past ten. Quyburn pays her a visit to remind her that she can always plead guilty and that his fine work on monster Mountain is still ongoing. I’m not entirely certain what benefit there is to unleashing Frankenstein at this point, but maybe he’ll rampage his way through the faith, though I’m still hoping that the transformation is one that turns him into a man of the holy orders, draped in white and blessing everyone. Cersei is hell bent on not confessing, which seems fair. We’re not entirely certain what the punishment would be if she did. 

                This particular plot is interesting in so far as it reveals a truth about humanity in general. Power is only power in so far as it’s respected. Once Cersei is no longer treated like a queen she’s lapping water off the floor and pleading with a woman in a nun’s habit. By and large power is structured on the belief and acquiescence to that structure. Take our current economic structure, which rewards the wealthy for being wealthy in the form of higher returns on investments, stock options, etc. It’s a structural inequity but one that everyone has sort of agreed to, or is at least tacitly accepting if the general drift of the left to the center and the right to the polar right is any gauge. Well, in King’s Landing, the people are rising French Revolution style. Cersei is either ending up on the guillotine or being saved by zombie mountain. 

                The only real down beat of the show was the trials and travails of Arya Stark who can’t break away from the House of Black and White fast enough for me. The gambling plot line is both confusing and a little ancillary. She needs to hurry up and get learning some assassin skills or she’s going to as useless as a giant Warg. Her plot has come to a virtual stand-still, and though it obviously had to end, her time spent sparring with The Hound may be her high point on the show. See what the Walkers do? They make all this other stuff seem rather petty. 

                Of course the final twenty minutes of the show were some of the best that we’ve seen in a while. The fighting scene worked, despite television budgets, and they had a giant! The scene, as I said above, was well-executed with quick action work along with a bumbling mass of skeletons headed over a cliff with no other thought in mind but killing Jon Snow. Speaking of which, what does it mean that Lord Commander was hit in the heart with that cold sword? I’ve seen Frozen, so I’m guessing it’s not good. If only music and brotherly love can keep him safe. 

                The boss fight scene between Jon and the Walker worked as well, even though those damn into bits keep giving away large parts of the show. It was rather clear after the introduction that his Valyrian steel was not going to break when the Walker struck it. And we had the new wildling chieftainess around long enough to get her children on a boat and then be smothered by a heaping mass of child bones. Sigh. GOT can’t let us have a nice moment now can it? This was the most chilling, no pun intended, end to an episode that we’ve seen thus far. The Night’s King standing with his arms raised, taunting Lord Snow with his army of the dead. As I said above, an antagonist of  mindless killers is scary, but an antagonist who has intelligence or hatred working along with a group of endless wights is downright terrifying.